COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 9 July — Respondents of a radio consider President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s renaming of Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao province to Camp Duma Sinsuat as a tactic to sow discord between two family tribes in the area, a radio report said yesterday.
It is a classic “divide and rule” tactic designed to create conflict and misunderstanding between the Iranons and the Sinsuat clan, said the report.
Conducted by Suara Mindanao, a two-hour daily radio program aired over DXCM, the survey showed 95 percent out of 120 respondents sharing the same view, program director Esmail Ebrahim disclosed.
President Arroyo announced the renaming of the camp during a visit to the MILF’s sprawling former main headquarters on July 2. Camp Abubakar is located in the tri-boundaries the towns of Matanog, Barira, and Buldon, all of the first district of Maguindanao.
The towns are inhabited predominantly by Iranons, a Moro tribe whose warriors have helped resist foreign domination from the time of the Spaniards to the American and Japanese hegemonists.
“Our ancestors have never turned their backs in the fight for our people’s identity and homeland,” said an Iranon local legislator, who asked not to be named.
“Iranons have nothing against the Sinsuat clan but it has to be mentioned that the Sinsuats have little, if any, involvement insofar as the development of the Iranon people and community, not to mention that the family collaborated with Japanese occupation forces during World War II,” said the legislator.
Duma Sinsuat, whom the president called the “illustrious son of Maguindanao,” has held various important positions in the government.
He was then a governor of the former province of Cotabato, which is now divided into the provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato and Maguindanao.
Sinsuat was also the head of the Commission on National Integration (CNI), and was a Cabinet member holding a post of secretary to the General Services Office during the time of President Diosdado Macapagal, father of President Arroyo.
Observers said the Sinsuats and the Iranons have never collided either in the field of politics, economy, or culture, but a gap is beginning to emerge as a consequence of the president’s recent renaming of camp Abubakar.
A resolution has been passed by the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao asking the president to reconsider her order.
Assembly members said the Sinsuats, after all, had a mix feeling about the issue.
The MILF had earlier aired its own objection not so much on the changing of the name but, on the president’s declaration transferring the Philippine Army’s 603rd Brigade headquarters from its present site at Pagcalagan, Sultan Kudarat to Camp Abubakar.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the order was not only a provocation but a violation of a standing cease-fire and cooperation agreement between the MILF and the government.
